stripping a chicken

Contains_Mild_Peril

judy2357 wrote: »

I think the cheapest way is to buy a cooked chicken from tescos and strip it. I know you wont get it for £2 and am not sure of the price at the mo (prob £3/£4) but you could use it for 2 meals. Saves on gas/electricity and takes just a couple of minutes to strip.

You might get it for £2 if you go late in the evening. I got a large cooked chicken reduced to clear for £2.05 last night.

Topher

Another thing to remember when stripping a cooked chicken (sorry to anybody who thinks I'm teaching them to suck eggs, but I noticed my kids and husband needed this mentioning) is to turn the carcass over and check the underneath. This is where what my Mum calls the "medallions" are, as well as other good bits & pieces that may get overlooked. I find doing it with my hands means I can rescue bits that are attached to inedible ligaments, by squeezing the meat off the inedible bit. I can also pull off all the thin slivers near and between the bones.
I used to be able to get about another 4ozs of chicken more than my hubby could, this way. Oh, and organic chicken does have more leg meat, wing meat, and bigger medallions, than unhappy chickens.
T

basil01_2

It's a great idea to buy a whole chicken rather than just the pre-prepared breast as your just paying for someone to cut it up for you and stick it into a nice wrapper.
For curry I buy whole chicken stick it in the slow cooker then the meat just falls off the bone, no carving required. Then I slice into chunks, prepare the curry sauce and add the chicken last. Takes a little advance planning but tastes great.
As you can get to all the meat none is wasted and there's always lots of chicken left over for sandwiches etc later.

Olliebeak

For making curries, I buy 'diced turkey thigh' from Asda (I find that the pieces of meat often need making smaller) - doubt if anybody could tell that it was turkey once it's cooked. I find that 1 tray can be split into two separate amounts.

One lot goes into a casserole and the other goes into a curry. Casserole gets padded out with onions, carrots and mushrooms. Curry gets padded out with onions, peppers (the sliced frozen ones) and mushrooms.

Of course if I'm dealing with roast chicken left-overs, then that's another matter altogether and would use it up any way that I could think of at the time.

top_drawer_2

hi,

Unfortunately, I cant drive and the nearst ASDA/Tesco/Morrisons is some way away so I have to make do with the 5 day market in town and the surrounding shops or do a big shop and order online (difficult because I also live in a shared house and there is never enough space in our fridge/freezer).

How would I go about making soup out of the carcass? Do I just boil it and then what?

I also dont have a slow cooker - again space is a problem.

I agree about the turkey (its also lower in fat) but means a lot of travelling/storing.

Thanks

Jen

prettypennies

I tend to make the stock first then chill it (so I can skim off the fat) then use it to make the soup.

For the stock base, break up the carcass and remove any leftover skin.

Bung in a big pan and cover with water. Throw in an onion (halved, skin left on) a carrot, a stick of celery, bay leaf, rosemary or any other hard herbs. Simmer for several hours (the longer the better)

Strain the stock through a sieve lined with a jay cloth.

The stock can be used for whatever soup you fancy (leftover chicken, sweetcorn and noodle popular in my house)

My stock generally ends up in risotto though.

CoD_2

i find buying a whole free range bird, cooking it, then stripping it and packing the meat into sandwich bags (don't take up much freezer space as no bones) to be the most cost effective method. i can then take out one bag and add to curry/whatever. best to compare price per kg. much easier to strip the meat off a cool cooked chicken;)